Having worked in an incubator space and constantly overhearing aspiring entrepreneurs' wildly impractical proposals...I've always wondered why it isn't just common sense that you heed the advice mentioned in another article currently on HN's front page:
> But our biggest self realization was that we were not users of our own product. We didn’t obsess over it and we didn’t love it. We loved the idea of it. That hurt.
In a way, the OP is just another re-phrasing of this...if you know the steps of a process pretty well, it's because you're an active user. You know what steps are worth removing, and as an active user, you can maintain a tight feedback loop informing you whether the cost of removing those steps are worth it. And, as a cherry on top, you're actively making something you already do more enjoyable.
The flip side is also sometimes true. When you know the steps of some process well, it means you've internalized all the existing assumptions. That can make it difficult to clearly realize where removing steps is possible.
When I was in high school I would always lose points on my tests because I never showed any work. It was always easier for me to imagine formulas in my head like puzzle pieces then writing them down.
I don't think this is necessarily the case. You do need to understand the idea's ___domain really well, but that doesn't have to be because it's something you do already. You could try to solve the problem of someone you know well, or have a cofounder who knows the problem ___domain better than you, or pick a market that seems underserved and learn about it until you get an idea and can make sure it's not a bad one.
There are benefits to picking something you don't already do - or rather, something that most people who start startups don't do. People naturally think the most about optimizing things they do often, and when most of them are being told to "scratch your own itch", they do even more of that. So most software startups will be about things that people who write software and found startups do a lot of, and those markets will be the most competitive. If you solve your grandmother's problems instead of your own, there's a lot less competition.
http://fridriksson.tumblr.com/post/86584610871/a-startup-pos...
> But our biggest self realization was that we were not users of our own product. We didn’t obsess over it and we didn’t love it. We loved the idea of it. That hurt.
In a way, the OP is just another re-phrasing of this...if you know the steps of a process pretty well, it's because you're an active user. You know what steps are worth removing, and as an active user, you can maintain a tight feedback loop informing you whether the cost of removing those steps are worth it. And, as a cherry on top, you're actively making something you already do more enjoyable.